Cheney: Whatever possessed him?

Every time it seems that Dick Cheney has finally tired of satirizing himself, the former veep pops up again to castigate President Obama - for abandoning a faulty missile defense system, for ending the shameful practice of torture, and most recently for supposedly “dithering’’ about US strategy in Afghanistan. Yet these criticisms hardly seem to sway the public debate. If anything, they only call attention to how, in 2008, the Bush-Cheney team rebuffed a US commander’s request for 30,000 more troops. It’s as though Cheney’s soul has been taken over by a Democratic dybbuk. Such a mischievous visitor from the spirit world could hardly make a better case for careful deliberation now than Cheney is inadvertently doing.